Stone Gardens:A family cemetery on private land in Madison County is the final resting place of a historic figure

James Madison Johnson was born on December 8, 1832, in Warren County, Tennessee, to James Martin Johnson and Elizabeth Dunigan Johnson. His paternal great-grandfather, also named James Johnson, served as a commissioned officer in the Revolutionary War and was killed by Tories while home on furlough.

His grandfather William Johnson fought in the War of 1812 under General Andrew Jackson.

The family moved to Madison County around 1836 when James was a young child. He received his early education at the Ozark Institute and Arkansas College in Washington County. After teaching for a time, he studied medicine in Fayetteville before attending the St. Louis Medical College.

In 1859 he established a medical practice in Huntsville.

On September 10, 1850, he married his cousin Elizabeth Johnson, who was born in 1833 in Warren County, Tennessee. They had eight children together. During the Civil War, Elizabeth and the children were sent to safety in Alton, Illinois, and Madison County, returning to Arkansas in 1866. Elizabeth died on June 10, 1883.

 In 1893 Johnson married Jennie A. Mullins Wilson of Whitener in Madison County. She died in 1917.

Johnson followed farming until 1855, when he turned to the study and practice of medicine

He continued as a physician in Huntsville until the outbreak of war interrupted his work.

A committed Southern Unionist, Johnson left Huntsville on April 7, 1862, with his brother Francis and Isaac Murphy to join Union forces under General Samuel Curtis in Missouri. He served initially as a mail agent, then as a volunteer aide to General John Schofield of the Army of the Frontier. In late 1862 he received authority to recruit loyal Arkansans.

He opened a recruiting office in Fayetteville and raised the 1st Arkansas Infantry Regiment (Union), mustering in as its colonel on March 25, 1863.

His regiment defended Fayetteville against Confederate attack in April 1863 and later participated in operations that led to the capture of Fort Smith. Johnson commanded the post there and led scouting expeditions in northwest Arkansas. He took part in actions including the Battle of Cotton Plant, engagements in Indian Territory, and was present at Fort Pillow. He also commanded the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, VII Corps in the Department of Arkansas.

On March 13, 1865, he received a brevet promotion to brigadier general, confirmed by the Senate in 1867. He mustered out with his regiment on August 10, 1865, at Fort Smith.

After the war Johnson resumed medical practice and farming. He was elected to represent Arkansas’s Third Congressional District in 1864 and again in 1866, but Congress refused to seat delegates from former Confederate states.

 In 1867 he was elected the second lieutenant governor of Arkansas under Governor Powell Clayton. Political tensions within the Republican Party soon emerged. Johnson opposed Clayton’s policies, particularly the use of militia during the Militia Wars, and formed a Liberal Republican faction composed largely of native Arkansas Unionists.

In 1871, amid maneuvering around Clayton’s election to the U.S. Senate, Johnson accepted the position of secretary of state to resolve the succession crisis, serving until 1874. During the Brooks-Baxter War in 1874, as secretary of state he oversaw repairs to the damaged State House.

He also served on the board of trustees for the University of Arkansas from 1874 to 1883 and helped establish its location in Fayetteville.

 He never sought public office again after 1874.

Johnson lived out his later years on his farm near Wesley in Madison County. He continued practicing medicine and trained his daughter Kate, who studied under him. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity and applied for his Civil War pension in 1891.

Johnson died on February 15, 1913, at age 80 in Madison County. His death certificate lists the cause as broncho-pneumonia with contributing senility, with an illness duration of about three and a half days. He was buried in the family cemetery on his property.

The Colonel Johnson Cemetery lies on private property near Wesley in Madison County, in the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 23, Township 16 North, Range 28 West.

Access is via a private driveway off Highway 295, through a metal farm gate, and across a field. The site is fenced and features several large cedar trees. It is a small family burial ground containing Johnson, his first wife Elizabeth, and other relatives.

It is one of many historic family cemeteries in Madison County that preserve pioneer and Civil War-era stories of the region. Permission from the landowner is required for visits.

Johnson’s life reflected the complex loyalties and divisions of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras in Arkansas. As a Union officer from a Southern state, physician, and political leader, he navigated military command, Reconstruction governance, and local community service in the Ozarks.

His burial in the family cemetery he established underscores his deep ties to Madison County, where his family had lived since the 1830s.J